


Push and Pull

by azablue



Series: Sokka's Got You Covered [3]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: During Canon, Gen, Hakoda (Avatar) is a Good Parent, Katara (Avatar)-centric, Katara and Sokka both get to feel, Minor Sokka/Suki, Post Series, Pre-Canon, Protective Katara (Avatar), Protective Sokka (Avatar), Sokka (Avatar)-centric, Sokka has feelings, Southern Water Tribe, Water Tribe(s) (Avatar), sorry Hakoda, that doesnt mean he and his kids are perfect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:34:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27078910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azablue/pseuds/azablue
Summary: On the surface the two were completely perfect opposites. When they were children, the village elders would comment on how this was meant to be. Katara was born on a full moon in the dead of winter, and Sokka at the height of summer, at noon. As they got older the differences between them only grew. If Katara could make beads, Sokka could braid. When Katara followed her heart, Sokka relied on the strength of his mind.Where Katara pushed, Sokka pulled.OR: A Sokka-centric look at Katara and Sokka's relationship throughout the years, taking in everything from the cost of having a father in war to their two years alone to how they love and everything in between.Sokka's first memory is of Katara.
Relationships: Aang/Katara (Avatar), Hakoda & Katara (Avatar), Hakoda & Sokka (Avatar), Katara & Sokka (Avatar), Kya & Sokka (Avatar), Sokka/Suki (Avatar)
Series: Sokka's Got You Covered [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1903354
Comments: 21
Kudos: 106





	Push and Pull

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! 
> 
> This is my love letter to the Water Tribe siblings in the form of a Sokka-centric fic of ~vignette~ like shots of different moments in their lives. 
> 
> I think that their sibling relationship is so painfully strong and complex and I wanted to touch on a few moments that I've been thinking of writing for a while. 
> 
> Also I added some elements of Inuit culture from research and if anything you see if insensitive or inaccurate please do not hesitate to call me out I will change it immediately. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy :)  
> \- Aza

Sokka’s first memory is of Katara. She was just a week old when the family was preparing to be visited by the village elders and have her blessed by the healers of their tribe. Sokka was to be present for each of the ceremonies, but the first one, the one he remembers best, is the day the baby was given her name. She had been crying for nearly an hour when their grandfather, their mother’s father, suggested the baby be named after his late wife, the grandmother they did not get to meet.

_Katara._

Hakoda swears to this day that the moment his father-in-law said it, Katara stopped fussing entirely. She knew this was to be her name.

Sokka doesn’t know _exactly_ when she stopped crying, but he remembers, clear as day, what happened next. He was seated between his parents, leaning on his mothers knee, peering at the baby, her face contorting into all sorts of frustration. To see if he could stop it from twisting, Sokka gently cupped her face with his hand. As she started to settle, Sokka traced a finger across her face, feeling the bridge of her nose, her forehead, but before he could touch her closed eyes, his mother noticed and _carefully_ moved his hand back to her cheek. The sudden movement caused the baby to stir, but instead of growing upset, she opened her eyes. Sokka can’t remember his mother’s face on that day, but until he leaves this world he’ll be able to paint his sister’s big blue eyes starting up at him for the first time, from memory.

“Hi Katara.”

———————————————————————————————————-

The first time Sokka was left alone with Katara by his parents, it was under far less dire circumstances than the last. Kya had asked Sokka to take care of his sister while she went next-door for two minutes. When she returned she found her children exactly where she’d left them, Katara still wrapped in blankets, propped up on the floor, and Sokka sitting in from of her, his gaze fixated on the baby. Sokka squealed at his mother’s return, jumping to proudly show her his still-alive sister. Kya was pleased he was so happy, but she couldn’t help but pause over the way he described what he’d done. Sokka didn’t say he watched Katara, or took care of her, no, the word he used was _protect._

Kya’s son _protected_ his sister with an intensity that worried her as _his_ mother, not as Katara’s. She knew what war did to little boys with his spirit.

———————————————————————————————————-

The next time Sokka finds he must protect sister, it feels scary. He was seven and Katara was five when while playing outside she moved the snow beneath his feet. Their world changed that day because of a snowball fight.

That night, after a small celebration riddled with worried glances, Hakoda and Kya sat Sokka down on their bed. Hakoda was a strong man and a calculated leader, but no one close to him would ever say he was stern. For years after this conversation Sokka pictured it happening between him and someone else, this wasn’t his dad. This man was serious and secretive and most surprisingly, scared. 

“Sokka,” not-Hakoda began, “do you remember the stories of the last water benders of our tribe?"

“… yes?” Sokka was puzzled by the question. Everyone he knew had heard the tales of the water benders, even though no one could remember being told. It was like the weight had been born with each member of the tribe.

“And you know what happened?” His father continued.

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”  
  
“Hakoda sweetheart,” Kya said, placing a hand on her husband’s shoulder. Sokka almost jumped at the sound of his mother’s voice, he had been so distracted by his father healmost forgot that she was sitting right beside him.  
  
“They were taken away,” Sokka said slowly.

“But we won’t let that happen again. It’s not happening again,” Kya said, almost desperately. She gathered her son and placed him on her lap, running a shaky hand over his head. Sokka thought if she held him any closer, they would become one person.

 _Oh,_ Sokka thought filling in the blank, _again means Katara._ His heart felt heavy. For what could have been the hundredth time that day, Sokka wished he was the special one. This time however, the feeling was not born out of jealousy.Someone could take his sister.

“It’s not.” His father said, wrapping his arms around his wife. Looking back Sokka isn’t sure if what his parents said was for his benefit or their own.“And to make sure you need to protect her. Make sure she doesn’t bend by the shore or get into trouble. Can you do that?” Sokka took a deep breath and wriggled out of his mothers hold. Standing to face his parents he tried to be as tall as his seven year old body would let him before he met his father’s eyes with unwavering determination.

“I can.”

And just like that, his life was not his own.

———————————————————————————————————-

The final time Sokka was told to protect his sister was heavy. Real. Inescapable. Sokka played the moment his dad left over and over in his mind until it wound up in his dreams, his personal mantra playing on a loop. _Protect Katara. Protect water bending. Protect the culture. Protect the tribe._

Sokka was a man of his word.

Sokka held Katara on their first night alone as cried herself to sleep. Sokka brought her out fishing so she could water bend in the open ocean, her jagged movements propelling the boat forwards. Sokka forced the children of their tribe to learn bow and club carving, the same way it had been taught for generations, even though they were far too small to use them. Sokka was the one to placed himself between the village and the enemy.

Protect Katara. Protect water bending. Protect the culture. Protect the tribe.

Fill the hole left behind.

———————————————————————————————————-

Katara lived by a mantra too. It was different than her brothers, older and more simple. The same thing played in her head every day since she put on her mother’s necklace.

_Keep moving._

Katara is as adaptable as the element she bends. She didn’t stop _doing_ until the Avatar himself jumped out of an ice berg and taught her how to slow back down. Katara cooked and cleaned and sewed and delivered babies and kept her brother in line and did everything she could possibly think of to take up space.

If she kept going, she reasoned, then maybe she could be who her brother needed. That she could do. That she _had_ to do. Because in her mind it was her fault who he needed was gone. It was her fault her brother had no mother.

Every day was spent trying desperately to fill the hole left behind. 

———————————————————————————————————-

Kya and Hakoda both left their children, so Sokka and Katara made sure _they_ were enough.

Hakoda didn’t think of it that way when he left. It didn’t even occur to him until Bato described the looks on his children’s faces when he said their dad had been there, so painfully close. It was a look of disbelief at hearing that their father was certainly, undoubtedly, _alive_. It dawned on him that his children considered both their parents to be lost, and didn’t count on either one coming home for certain. Reuniting with their dad was just as much a fantasy as it was with their mother.

When Katara and Sokka were reunited with their father, it wasn’t the homecoming any of them were fantasizing. They’d changed. Hakoda knew, logically, that nearly three years would have altered the faces he pictured every night, but it was still jarring to _see_ the differences in the ones staring back at him. Where his son was once soft he was now sharp, but Hakoda wasn’t as bothered by that as much as the new face being revealed by fading baby fat, Kya’s face. She was there in the way he furrowed his brows, in his small smiles and pursed lips. It was as if he was pronouncing to the world that was still his mother’s son. His daughter was no different. Where he had left his _baby_ there now stood a young woman, grown far too soon. She was sharp too, and with a strength he’d only heard of in children’s stories.

But they were still his children, he told himself. Sokka and Katara were _his,_ even though they were closer to people he’d never met than they were to him. Hakoda found himself with a new fantasy, one where he bridged the gap between them, pulling them to his side and hugging them so close that all their problems go away.It didn’t take long for him to realize he was not that person for them anymore.

Sokka and Katara made sure they were enough.

On his third night in the temple, Hakoda woke to Katara screaming long and loud. His daughter was having a nightmare. By the time he got to her sleeping mat, Sokka was already there, holding her by the shoulders and sayingover and over that he was _there_ , and it was _over_. Hakoda stood frozen as his son lifted Katara to her feet and guided her to the fountain after giving a small nod to the three figures who had gathered around them, signaling to go back to sleep. To Hakoda’s surprise, Aang, Toph, and Suki all wordlessly moved their mats over Sokka’s before settling back down to await his return.

Hakoda sat with his children by the fountain, hearing them speak to each other about places he had never been and dangers he had never faced. He watched longingly as his son held his daughter. Neither child asked for help from their dad, both seemingly out of practice. And while he recoiled at the thought, Hakoda knew he was out of practice too. Soon the clouds parted in Katara’s eyes and she too made her way to Sokka’s sleeping mat, leaving Hakoda with his son. He was so lost in thought he nearly jumped when he spoke up.

“This happens from time to time. She’ll be fine once she lies back down with the others,” Sokka said rising to his feet.

“You did really well calming her down,” Hakoda replied. It was all he could muster and he meant it. Saying thank you felt too odd. There was too much to thank him for. And saying _I’m sorry_ felt it should be saved for a different, longer conversation.  
  
“Yeah well, years of practice,” Sokka replied matter-o-factly, stretching his back. Hakoda winced.

“Right. Does she…still have dreams about your mom?” Sokka stopped stretching and sighed. When Hakoda had left Katara was still waking up in tears at least one a month. Sokka would wake up often with them, but it was always Hakoda to lull her back to sleep.When he left he hoped his mother would take that role, but now he sees he was mistaken.

“Not as often, I think a lot of other things have been the focus for a while but, yeah sometimes.”

“And the others, they have dreams too? About your travels.” Hakoda knew nightmares plagued nearly every one of the Water Tribe warriors, himself included. Fighting in war made it difficult to do anything else without thinking of it, including sleep.  
  
“ Aang mostly, but Toph and Katara too from time to time,” Sokka said bending over the fountain with cupped hands to drink the water. 

“And you?” This was the question that he had been wanting to ask. Sokka paused, letting some of the water slip through his fingers. Hakoda watched as his son calculated a response. He may wear his mother’s face, but Sokka shares his father’s mind.  
  
“Yeah, me too. But I can handle it,” Sokka said firmly. He had let the rest of the water fall from his hands and glancing at his reflection as the water settled, his eyes illuminated by the moon.

“I’m sure you can. And others… Katara, she helps you too? When you get nightmares?” Hakdoa could _feel_ that he was pushing too far. He knew his son didn’t like to talk about his feelings or needing help, but he had to make sure his child was getting taken care of if it couldn’t be by him. What he did not expect was this reaction. Sokka stiffened at the question, his eyes narrowing. Whatever comfortable air that had been between them was gone.  
  
“Don’t put that on her. That’s not how this works,” Sokka said bluntly.

“What do you mean?” Hakoda was confused, both by his son’s frankness and his vague statement.  
  
“Can we not talk about this right now? It’s getting late and we both need to be up early,” Sokka replied, dodging the question. He ran a hand through his hair, the angle revealing a thick scar on the inside of his upper arm. Hakoda froze. If his son didn’t look older before he certainly did now, sunken eyes and skin peppered with scars, hair rivaling his own in length. Hakoda sighed. All he wanted was to hold his son, the world had already had him for too long. He wanted his turn back. But that was not going to happen here, now, in _war_.

“Of course. Funny I don’t remember you being an early riser.” It was all Hakoda could muster, and he thought maybe, if he could do one thing right tonight, it would be to let his son go back to his friends on a lighter note. Sokka tried to laugh, but it came out as a heavy sigh.

“Yeah well things change,” Sokka replied. Hakoda sat at the fountain, watching his son walk back over to his sleeping mat, now littered with children. After checking each one was actually asleep, Sokka found his place in the pile and went to sleep.  
  
_Yes,_ Hakoda thought, _they do._

———————————————————————————————————-

Katara and Sokka balanced each other.

On the surface the two were completely perfect opposites. When they were children, village elders would comment on how this was meant to be. Katara was born on a full moon in the dead of winter, and Sokka at the height of summer, at noon. As they got older the differences between them only grew. If Katara could make beads, Sokka could braid. When Katara followed her heart, Sokka relied on the strength of his mind.Where Katara pushed, Sokka pulled.

The two fought unlike any pair of siblings their partners had ever met, having screaming matches well past adolescence. At first their fighting always worried the people around them. After they first met, both Aang and Suki, separately, tried to and play damage control, but it was often to no avail, left to agonize over how awkward dinner was destined to be. But at the end of every fight, rather inexplicably, there were always apologies and hugs and forgiveness before the next meal. Within the hour the same people who refused to speak to one another would be laughing together like two pepper peas in a pod.

Katara and Sokka loved harder than any two people anyone in their family had ever met. Aang liked to think that this was always how they were. Suki had her suspicions but prayed to the spirits that she was wrong. She wished that all the ways the siblings enveloped their family with love was born with them, just in their nature. But she knew better. She could feel it in the way Katara hugged her, or Sokka held her hand. She saw it in how they loved each other. Where Katara’s love for her brother was loud, Sokka’s love was softer. Katara always wore her heart on her sleeve, giving her brother hugs and firm shoulder squeezes whenever she saw he needed it. Sokka expressed himself with actions, staying up late with his sister on the night the moon tugged too hard and making sure she ate and slept enough, well into adulthood. She saw how the siblings held each other, it was with an intensity that challenged the ocean’s waves. Where Sokka pushed, Katara pulled.

Sokka and Katara knew the finite nature of love and refused to waste time. They knew how to be alone like they knew the tides, and it was something they desperately wished to fall out of practice with. The siblings clung to those they loved with all the strength of the sea.

Let it never be said that a non bender could not be one with the elements. Though presently anyone would say the opposite, Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe was born as intrinsically connected to the sea as his sister was born to the moon.

Their grandmother knew, long ago, that the two would be like Tui and La, balancing each other in an everlasting dance.

———————————————————————————————————-

Sokka and Katara shared many things. A culture, a childhood, their father’s ears, and an anger. A bone deep anger with no place to house.

One warm spring night, Sokka and Katara were laying on the roof of the Fire Nation palace, looking up at the full moon. The whole gang was in one place for the first time in months, staying for the long weekend to celebrateZuko’s 20th birthday. His party was to be the next day, it was to be a large spectacle to honor the young Fire Lord and it was recommended that everyone get a solid nights rest. In different circumstances, Katara would be telling her brother to get a jacket or Sokka would try and reason his sister into sleeping in if she was going to be up this late. But these were not normal circumstances.

“I think maybe we should talk about what happened,” Katara asked him suddenly. Sokka sighed. He knew what she was talking about and he thought maybe they shouldn’t.

“I’ll write him a letter.” Sokka said, hoping that it would satisfy his sister enough to drop the subject. Katara shifted and looked at him, her blue eyes almost glowing in the moonlight.

“I asked if you wanted to talk about what happened, not what you’re going to do,” she responded, “… although I think a letter would be good.”.

“It’s fine okay? I messed up and already feel bad, I don’t need to hear it from you too.” Sokka said, turning away from her.

“I wasn’t going to lecture you Sokka,” Katara said softly, placing a hand on his shoulder, “not about this. You get to feel upset.” Sokka turned back to his sister, running his hands through his loose wolf tail.

“ What’s the use? It all happened years ago and it’s fine now. I over reacted,” He said, brushing off her hand. He was unsure of who he was actually trying to convince, his sister or himself.  
  
“I don’t think you did,” Katara responded gently.  
  
_“Sokka I… I thought we had come to an understanding. You were just saying yourself how thirteen is too young to be out in the world like that,” Hakoda said, exasperated.  
  
“Oh but you can be left behind to protect an entire village? Left to protect women and children!” Sokka yelled back._

_“Sokka, you were a child.”  
_

_“But my mother wasn’t there!” Sokka paused, almost surprised by his own words.“We had just lost our mom and you… you left us too dad.”_  
  
Katara and Sokka love to talk about home. Throughout their travels and far after, they tell their friends the stories they heard growing up and teach them the songs every child born in the South Pole is born with in their lungs. Each of Katara’s children will love the taste of stewed sea prunes and go ice dodging with their uncle. And when the time comes both Sokka and Katara, though painfully far apart, will be returned to the sea in the traditional way of the South. The siblings carry the tribe deep in their bones and they’ll open themselves to anyone who asks. They love to talk about home, except for a precious two years. Sokka and Katara don’t speak a word about the time between the sunrise when their father left and the afternoon when they met Aang to anyone but chosen family. And even then, the conversation’s in hushed tones, long after Toph and Zuko and Aang and Suki have all shared their own grievances. In the light of day they’ll tell a lighthearted story, but if anyone were to prod deeper, swim further down to the depths of their memories, it is an unspoken agreement to change the subject. On their last visit to the South, which happened to be right before Zuko’s birthday, Hakoda pushed too hard.

Their father had caught on that even on their darker days, neither of his children spoke a word about their first birthday alone. Katara’s first thought, when he inquired, was how much he reminded her of Sokka, always perceptive. It struck her that it was not the other way around, her brother reminding her of her father. It didn’t upset her like it used to, not since the war ended. Funny how that works.She pondered for a moment all the stories she could tell, every painful moment of those two years alone. But when she looked back at her tired, war torn father, she couldn’t do it. She was her mother’s daughter and would protect the people she loved. That’s what she told herself, that she didn’t want to burden him. But in the back of her mind she knew that really, she didn’t want to relive it all. Not tonight in their not-empty igloo in her not-impoverished village with her not-gone father. So she decided to say what she had been told. She said that it was hard, and they felt sad sometimes, but they knew he had a job to do. He had a job to do and it wasn’t fair to either party but it was where he was needed. Sokka tried his best not to roll his eyes as his sister quoted the speech he had given to both of them for two years.

Sokka knew what she was leaving out. She could have told him about the month they lived off of two bags of seal jerky because a polar bear dog had gotten into the winter rations and the babies needed all the real food. Or the time Sokka was attacked hunting seals and nearly lost his right hand (the _real_ reason he’s now ambidextrous). Or the first anniversary of their mother’s death when Katara refused to eat or bathe or leave her bed. Or the three day screaming match on the first anniversary of their father leaving.Or the time Gran Gran got sick and Katara didn’t sleep for two days, nursing her back to life with the healers because she _refused_ to let one more person leave them. Or the week they lived with Sura and her kids because half of their igloo caved in. And that it was the first week in years Katara didn’t have to cook or clean and while they never said it, neither of them wanted to go back to their empty igloo. Or any of the many, many fights born not out of anger at each other, but anger at the world. The fights that started with nagging and ended with _I hate you_. The fights where Sokka almost moved out of their tent. The ones that lasted days but always were resolved because when it came down to it they knew they were just two small blue dots in a sea of white, trying desperately to make sense of the senseless.

On the last night of their stay, Hakoda asked the same question, seemingly unsatisfied with the first answer. Before Katara could speak up her brother asked ruefully if their father really wanted to know. Hakoda said yes.

Sokka sighed a long, hollow sigh.

“I know why he left. I really do. But sometimes… sometimes it feels like he doesn’t get it. How much it changed things. He acts like we’re all different because we fought in the war but honestly? I think the sometimes the reason for this… block between us is because of everything that happened in the in between,” Sokka said finally.

“I get what you mean.” Katara sighed, “sometimes I feel angry with him. All the pressure he put on us, on me. I know he was grieving too and there was a war but… it wasn’t fair.” Katara rested her chin on her knees. Sokka stared at his sister, her pose reminding him of when she was little, huddled by the fire stirring their pot with a spoon half her size. He would never get over how much strength and resilience fit into one tiny person. Katara rarely spoke about the unfairness of her childhood, opting to help others with their traumas or even talk about the war before her own wounds, but Sokka felt she deserved to talk about it, mourn it, far more than she did.  
  
“It wasn’t,” he said, lying back onto the roof.  
  
“Do you remember what happened right after mom died? Dad wouldn’t get out of bed and we didn’t eat for three days. Three whole days before _you_ dragged me out of bed and took me to Bato’s,” Katara said, pulling her knees even closer to her chest.  
  
“I remember,” Sokka responded. He would always be ashamed of how everything played out. Getting them to Bato’s was the most grown up thing he did the entire _mourning period_. The rest he let fall on his sister. “You started cooking in our house the next week.”

“I don’t think dad knows all that. And he was _there,_ ” Katara said, almost spitefully.

“If he didn’t like the seal jerky story I think he’d hate that one, at least with the jerky there was nothing he could’ve done.” Sokka had wanted to make a joke, but it fell on his tongue. Katara hummed in agreement and laid back down beside her brother. Her bright, courageous, parent of a brother. They laid in comfortable silence, both staring at the moon. Sokka glanced at his sister, his strong, passionate, parent of a sister.

“I’m sorry I made you be mom.”  
  
“I’m sorry you thought you had to be dad.”

And for them, that was enough. It was enough for tonight.

———————————————————————————————————-

Katara’s first memory is of Sokka. It was one of the worst blizzards the tribe had had in years, forcing everyone into their igloos for over a week as they waited out the storm. On the fifth day their parents were at their wits end, tired from entertaining their children from sun up to sun down indoors. Katara was careening towards another meltdown, she didn’t understand why she couldn’t just leave to go play outside. It snowed all the time, why was more snow so bad? But this time, before she could get worked up, her brother had an idea. This was the afternoon Sokka decided to make up a story. Pulling her close in his lap, Sokka spun a ridiculous tale of polar bear dogs and talking arctic hens that fully entranced his younger sister. While the actual plot may have grown fuzzy with time, until the day she leaves this world Katara will be able to remember the sound of her brother’s voice as he took her on a journey with only his words. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Please read :)
> 
> The Water Tribe siblings will, always and forever, have my entire heart.
> 
> Growing up they were the first real brown skinned kids I saw who were full fledged main characters and there were two! (if you have melanin you knows theres literally never two) Me and my (also brown skinned) brother watched this show together and it meant so very much even though we're a different race (mixed gang wya). I wanted to let them be upset and have their grievances validated as a sort of thank you for being such a validating force in my life. 
> 
> ALSO  
> I know I added a lot of what could be perceived as Hakoda slander in this. I want to state for the record I did not write this as "Hakoda is a bad parent" at all, I think he is actually a good parent, but he and his children are in an impossibly difficult situation. He had to leave, which they understand, but he also left at a time when they were young and grieving and watching their home fall apart. Both of them were also warped by this situation, both carrying the trauma of parenting a sibling with Katara having to fill the void of her mom after she died and Sokka, while less apparent, tried so desperately to be like a dad .Neither of them hate or don't have a good relationship with their dad, but that doesn't mean things can't feel hard.


End file.
